Forgotten herstory: Women you need to know

Updated 10:52 PM ET, Tue March 11, 2014

Forgotten herstory: Women you need to know15 photos

Women's Herstory: Women you need to know – Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie won the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction for her book "Half of a Yellow Sun." She became more popularly known after her TED talk was sampled in "Flawless," a song by pop singer Beyonce: "Feminist: the person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes," she says. Adichie is part of a new wave of voices advocating women's equality. Before her, many women whose names you may not know paved paths to a more equal future and changed history. Click through the gallery for examples:

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Forgotten herstory: Women you need to know15 photos

Women's Herstory: Women you need to know – Lucretia Mott was a Quaker abolitionist who founded the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833 after she was excluded from some all-male abolitionist meetings. She later became the first president of the American Equal Rights Association,whose mission was to grant equality for blacks and women.

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Women's Herstory: Women you need to know – Orator and civil rights activist Sojourner Truth was born into slavery and could not read nor write, but her words have endured. Most famously, she declared "Ain't I a woman?" at a women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio, in 1851.

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Women's Herstory: Women you need to know – American feminist, abolitionist and reformer Julia Ward Howe was a co-editor and writer for the Woman's Journal, a key player in creating Mother's Day and the first female admitted to Society of Arts and Letters. She is best known for writing the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

Women's Herstory: Women you need to know – Hispanic Heritage Award winner Dolores Huerta has fought to improve working conditions for farm workers. The Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree co-founded the organization that would become United Farm Workers in 1962.

Women's Herstory: Women you need to know – Mary McLeod Bethune created the National Congress of Negro Women, Bethune-Cookman College and served as an adviser to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

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Women's Herstory: Women you need to know – American activist Yuri Kochiyama was interned during World War II. She later helped push for passage of the Civil Liberties Act, which compensated Japanese-Americans incarcerated in internment camps during the war.

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Women's Herstory: Women you need to know – Civil rights leader and NAACP official Daisy Bates was a central leader during the "Little Rock Nine" case, which sought to integrate the all-white Central High School with nine black students.

Women's Herstory: Women you need to know – American suffragist Olympia Brown is regarded as the first woman to graduate from a theological school, as well as becoming the first full-time ordained minister.